Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Mastercard, shares his vast experience in building financial acumen as a CMO, how to understand the expectations of the CEO, how to better partner with your CFO, how to earn credibility across the organization for the marketing team, how to leverage marketing for the greater good, and more…

In this eleventh episode of CMO Moves, I had the pleasure of talking with Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Mastercard. What is interesting is that in the first ten episodes of CMO Moves, Raja was mentioned in almost every episode as someone who is passionate and astute about the Business of Marketing.

Having spent quite a bit of time conversing with Raja in the past, I knew first-hand that he was an expert there and decided to dive right into the hot topic of how to build your financial muscles as a CMO. What I discovered through this episode is that Raja has not only been a leading CMO with strong financial acumen, but he earned his knowledge by spending the early part of his career in sales and then subsequently moving back and forth between CMO and GM roles. In fact, at Mastercard today, he is not only the global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, but also the President of the Healthcare Division at Mastercard.

Join us in this fascinating discussion about the role of the CMO, the expectations of the CEO, how to better partner with your CFO, how to earn credibility across the organization for the marketing team and then shift gears into how that translates in to bigger and better marketing which folds in the hottest technology to bring compassion and hope to the world.

Raja’s dedication to giving back through his marketing efforts are remarkable; from #StartSomethingPricess to combatting bias to feeding children in Africa. But equally remarkable are his personal efforts of being a mentor and teacher of so many to help elevate marketing talent at all levels.

And as I always end my podcasts, stay tuned in to find out more about where to find Raja in the future! Hint – I’ll be right there too, volunteering.